Tag Archives: snow day

A Snake, Two Black Eyes, a Fat Lip, and Honey All Over the Couch: Five Things To Do on a Snow Day

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five snow dayYeah, here’s why Pinterest can kiss my shiny white ass.  While other moms are out there making craft fair table scapes and snow cream and sugar cookie silhouettes from their family tree, here are just a FEW of my scrapbook worthy moments from the last 48 hours.

  • Carlos yells, “NAKE!  NAKE!” from the den so I drop the can opener and come running.  Last weekend we had a field mouse in the house, so a snake isn’t that far out of the question.  It wasn’t a snake, just a long, sinuous strand of cat barf.  A good foot long and patterned much like an Eastern Diamondback, so I gave the boy credit for rudimentary wildlife identification skills.  And I cleaned it up.
  • On Wednesday, in between the sleet and the freezing rain and the fears of losing power and limbs crashing down on us, I took the kids out in the back yard for a little sledding.  Vivi had a couple of good runs down the hill, made it all the way to the fence by the river.  Carlos asked for “Carlos Turn!” so I put him on the sled and pulled him gently down the hill with the tow rope.  Then we stopped to rest.  As I gazed about on this scene of winter frivolity, marveling at my skills as a mother and making memories for my children, I forgot that sleet is much slicker that snow.  He hooched a little bit and the sled took off again.  He squealed with delight…then slammed right into the big yellow slide attached to our playfort.  No worries, though, his eyebrow stopped the ridge of plastic from going straight through his brain.  First black eye.  Let me get that in the scrapbook!
  • That close call playing over and over and over again in my head was why I was up until 4 a.m. that night.
  • So on Thursday, things were looking up.  We hadn’t lost power.  We hadn’t run out of food or high speed internet.  The kids were playing.  Snow twinkled on the ground and melted down the gutters.  But after the previous day’s incident, I decided not to chance it with taking Carlos outside.  Instead, we went out to dinner then stopped by Target to pick up a few things and let the kids stretch their legs.  Carlos stretched his legs ably…until he tripped and landed face first on the tile floor with a sickening wet thump like a cantaloupe sailing into a fence (bear with my bad similes.  I’m exhausted.)  But no worries!  He landed DIRECTLY on the his right eyebrow, site of the previous black eye.  Please explain this to DFCS when we take him back to school after all this snow day fun!
  • Then Friday came and G had to go back to work.  I took a half day so I could work a little to maintain my sanity but also have time to take the kids out of the house and burn off some of this energy.  Pump It Up was having an extra open play session, so we headed on over.  Vivi took off with a screech for the tallest slide without a look back.  Carlos clung to me like a monkey because–oh, have I mentioned how my son doesn’t like crowds or loud noises or chaotic environments?  Yeah, I wasn’t really thinking when I picked an indoor inflatable play space on Day Four of Snowmaggedon (also known as Pain in the Ice or Clusterflake).  He finally calmed down when he found a plastic car abandoned in the corner.  We played quietly while Vivi ran around screaming.  Seriously, in Lord of the Flies, she would be queen of the island.  One of the newer inflatables is a tee ball thingy, where balls float above a jet of air so that kids can whack them with a plastic bat.  Carlos LOVED it.  Can you see where this is going?  Yep.  Three minutes before we were supposed to leave, he got a little too close to the other 3 year old who was wielding the bat and SMACK.  Fat lip.  Blood everywhere.  Shrieking.  Wailing.  Gnashing of teeth.  Side eye from the other mothers.  Most of whom were sitting there quietly cruising Pinterest on their phones while their children played without losing their hair bows or slinging body fluids on the toys.  
  • By the time we got home and put the poor beaten up kid down for a nap, I decided that I needed one too.  I set Vivi up with my computer to watch Sheriff Callie’s Wild West.  Victoria was snuggled up on the couch reading One Direction fan fiction on her iPad.  I crept off to bed with my book.  When I woke, the den looked….different.  Vivi had decided to fix herself a snack.  Of honey.  Which is best eaten with her fingers, y’know.  It wasn’t even ORGANIC honey–suck it, Pinterest.  It was Sue Bee honey in a motherlovin’ PLASTIC bear.  And now it is on my couch, love seat, door knobs, computer, books, coffee table, carpet, kitchen counters, throw blanket, pillows…and in my daughter’s hair.  

More power to the people who can do this:

snow day table 4

I hope they don’t choke on gingham or fall face first into a glitterized snow cone swath.  I certainly would never wish them washi tape poisoning or anything so crass.  I hope their Depression era cream ware always matches and their kids never get pinkeye or scribble on that milk paint china cabinet.  

Here’s what my snow day memories look like:

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I’ll protect him from snakes, take him out in the world, pick him up when he falls, kiss his fat lips, and let him snuggle up in my bed eating Reese’s Pieces from Target.  That’s my boy.  

Cry Havoc and Let Slip One Inch of Snow

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1781958_10202268250500702_631927003_nIt’s a Snowmaggedon here in Georgia.  Tuesday, as I made my way to Kroger for essentials (cocoa mix, milk, cheese, wine, toilet paper, apples, marshmallows), I laughed to see that there was only ONE cart left in the giant corral of carts by the entrance.  One.  But you better believe I hopped on it like a duck on a bug.  Winter weather in Georgia is cause for panic.  The mood of the day put me in mind of that line from Shakespeare’s “Julius Caesar” where Antony worries that Caesar’s pissed off ghost will “cry havoc and let slip the dogs of war.”  In ancient times, “Havoc” was a military command that basically gave the troops permission to pillage, murder and sack.  So when the commander cried HAVOC…things ended up looking much like the bread aisle at Kroger.

I have friends from Minnesota, Wisconsin, Colorado, Maine, Illinois–all of whom roll their eyes at us Southerners when we panic at the first sign of snow.  Yes, WE GET IT.  You have seen more snow in your lifetime.  You don’t understand what all the fuss is about.  In your book, this is NOTHING.  They would NEVER close schools back where you’re from.  Good for you.

For those of you who have grown jaded to snow, here’s a little insight into a snow day in Georgia:

  • As long as you get to choose when to be out in it, we still think snow is FUN.  It makes the dogs all giddy.  It even glosses over the piles of dog crap in the backyard.  It’s so unusual that it makes our kids all hyped up, like your kids would be if they suddenly got a pleasant day–sunny and 65–in the middle of January.  We get sunny and 65 all the time and it doesn’t freak us out.  We don’t rush to the store for sunscreen and margarita mix like y’all do.  
  • joySnow means “play” for young and old.  I spent $60 on sleds from the Army Surplus store this morning and my boss–who grew up in Indiana then Colorado–said, “YOU CAN’T SLED IN ONE INCH OF SNOW!”  Um, yeah–you can.  My kids would sled in the ice maker if I would let them give it a try.  We have a steep hill in the backyard coated in a bunch of crunchy grass and a thin skin of snow.  We. Are. Sledding.  I don’t care if it’s on an old shower curtain liner, a trash can lid or a fancy sled that will dry rot in the garage before we have a chance to use it again.
  • Yes, lots of snow is better for snowy activities, but we are snow beggers and cannot be snow choosers.  I have been snowboarding in Utah on two feet of fresh powder and it was delightful.  I have skied down the Stubaier Glacier in Innsbruck, Austria (in a very pokey fashion) and it was ripping fantastic (once I found a pocket of oxygen).  But an inch of snow can be a treasured childhood memory if it only happens once or twice in your life.  I still remember the week we were out of school in 1982 or 1983 due to snow.  Our house was the only one in town with a wood burning stove for heat and a gas stove for cooking.  Someone found an old sled at the antique dealer’s house.  My mom made real cocoa in a pan on the wood stove.  Our Irish Setter played until his coat was matted with icicles.  I’ll never forget that week because it not very often that we have an excuse to stop what we’re supposed to be doing and play.  
  • OK, we do talk about snow incessantly if there is any threat of a flake falling.  It is the only topic of conversation, whether the conversation be with a stranger, your coworkers, or the weatherman on the television set as we beg, “Please please please say it’s going to happen!”  Again, we talk about snow because it is exceptional for us (the same way transplants to the South talk about gnats and humidity and the fat content of mayonnaise–things we got over long ago).
  • chickenGo ahead and make the jokes about how we run to the grocery store for milk and bread.  Things can get dicey here pretty quickly when the roads freeze up, the power lines start snapping and the trucks can’t keep up.  We lost power for two days when Vivi was a toddler and it scared the crap out of me.  My brother got stuck in that epic traffic jam in Atlanta tonight–almost 10 hours to go from Buckhead to Marrietta (10-15 miles).  But guess what?  He made it OK because he had an 8 piece pack of chicken in his truck.   He had the good sense to stop by the grocery store first!

So y’all go on and roll your eyes if you must while we Southerners dash around with our mismatched mittens, insufficient footwear, and complete lack of black ice driving maneuvers.  I will be over here on my shiny new sled, just like it’s Christmas morning.  Or I will be in the E.R. with a head wound and some fried chicken in my purse.